Part 1: The Night My Husband Chose His Mistress Over Me… Until My Father Walked Through the Door

Two days passed in a blur of agonizing suspense.

We kept Leo inside the compound, the gates locked, the security protocol absolute.

Carter Global was on the verge of collapse, and my father was preparing to sign the documents that would surrender control of our legacy to Damian Blackwell.

"I won't risk my grandson's life for a corporate kingdom, Ava," Richard said, his pen hovering over the legal contract on his desk.

"There has to be another way," I argued, pacing the floor of his study.

"My mother didn't die just for us to give up twenty-five years later."

I looked at the old fireproof case that had contained my mother's flash drive all those years ago.

Something about the way the case was structured caught my attention.

I walked over to it, lifting the heavy metal box.

It felt slightly heavier on one side.

I turned it over, examining the bottom surface.

With a sharp pull, a hidden false bottom clicked open, revealing a dusty, handwritten ledger belonging to Grace Carter.

I opened the first page.

The handwriting was hurried, written in the final weeks of her life.

Victor believes he is the architect of the Blackwell fortune, she had written.

But he is wrong. Damian is the one holding the keys.

Damian has an unregistered bank account in Switzerland that contains the true source of their wealth—money stolen from the Russian energy grid in 1999.

If anyone ever needs to destroy the Blackwells permanently, the access codes are woven into the serial numbers of the family's original oil paintings.

I gasped, looking up at my father.

"The oil portraits," I whispered.

"The ones hanging in the old Blackwell estate that the government auctioned off."

My father stood up, his eyes widening.